Answer to Quiz and trying to capture a triple transit of Jupiter

Well, there was a big response for last week's quiz.  I guess most of you passed.  Maybe the quiz was too easy.  Should we have included some astrophysics too?  Anyway, my general comment about the responses is that it seems most of you weren't observing the stars late at night, but instead were watching the late night comedians on TV.  Yeah, just keep your day jobs, if you still have one.

My solar observing yesterday was successful for focusing the eyepiece and we could see a sun spot.  Resident Astronomer Peggy then informed me that there were
two sunspots.  Indeed on second view there were indeed two sunspots.  I guess this proves that two sets of eyes are better than one.

My attempt to focus with the camera however was not successful.  I guess I am destined to go under the hood again sometime.  Or maybe, I will just have a couple of martinis and be under the hood pretending to do astronomy.

On a more positive side, we spent the evening (not watching late night comedians) trying to capture the triple transit of Jupiter.  I had hoped to capture the moon's transit or the moon's shadow on Jupiter, but it didn't quite work out.  We thought we could see some show on the camera, but afterwards on the computer I couldn't find any evidence of the transit.

The three images below are provided for your review.  The first image shows one of the moon's just beginning the transit.  The 2nd photo shows Jupiter mid transit.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find any of the shadows on Jupiter.  The Santa Ana winds were really kicking up and seeing was quite bad.  Using Canon camera Liveview, the image was really jumping around.  We couldn't go to higher magnification because of the bad seeing.

The third photo shows one moon just coming out of transit.  I would of waiting a little for the end of transit to be over, but it was already close to midnight.  (I suppose that the rest of you comedians were already ensconced in your easy chairs picking up the latest joke with which to respond to this post).

Anyway, have fun, whatever your interest.  We still plan to go tonight to the Black Star cannon star party to try some deep sky imaging.  Hope the winds die down by then.

Until next time,
Resident Astronomer George

If you are interested in things astronomical or in astrophysics and cosmology

Check out this blog at www.palmiaobservatory.com